By JARROD POTTER
WHILE the result will not be too memorable for Pakenham hurdler Matt de Bruin, the thrill of representing Australia at the IAAF World Junior Athletics Championships will forever remain.
Although it wasn’t the result de Bruin was hoping for in Eugene, Oregon last week – finishing seventh in his semi-final of the 110m hurdles – he earned a worldwide ranking within the top 20 junior hurdlers and a strong foundation to work on as he transitions to senior athletics.
After running third in his heat – with a time of 13.87 – de Bruin earned a spot in the top-16 juniors worldwide and his place in the semi-final.
A promising start didn’t pay off throughout the race as the field caught him up and left him running for seventh place in his semi-final.
Crucially for de Bruin – and the big takeaway from the championships – he has improved his start times with his jump of out the blocks in the semi-final ranked first throughout the entire field as he got underway with a .133 of a second reaction time.
“I had a terrible semi-final,” de Bruin said.
“I’ve been working on my starts and improving to the first hurdle for months now and I finally pulled it off and was winning for the first few hurdles until i just hit a wall.”
It will be his first and last junior athletics championships but de Bruin learned a lot about himself on and off the track in Eugene, Oregon.
“There aren’t any more international junior meets for me, I’ll be too old next year, which means I will get stuck into the senior races,” de Bruin said.
“It was a great experience, I really just tried to soak it all in and just take as much out of the whole experience as I possibly could.
“It was very overwhelming but I guess I was just that focused that it didn’t really distract me from the comp.
“I’ve learned that your mind is so powerful and when it’s controlled anything is possible.”
He’ll return to Australia and start training for the summer athletics season with the Casey Cardinia Athletics Club.
